How NOT to toot your horn about your investment publications
Getting financial media recognition for your investment research enhances your credibility. It may even help you win new asset management clients and keep the old ones. However, I suggest you take the time to make your announcement about media coverage compelling, rather than boring.
To help you understand the difference, I’ve written a article closely modeled on a real article. This is the “before” version. Then, I tweak it in the “after” version.
Before Susan’s editing: So what?
We published a XXX Investment Company Report on Diversification, which you can read here. This research was the topic of an Investment Professional article, “Diversification for the Ages,” and was featured in Investment Manager Journal magazine article, “Hotshot’s Groundbreaking Diversification.”
After Susan’s editing: How this helps you
Did the 2008-2009 market decline make you worry about whether portfolio diversification is as effective as your business school professors told you? It can be effective. You’ll learn how we’ve boosted the power of diversification in our latest XXX Investment Company Report. We’re proud that our research is interesting enough that it has been featured in “Diversification for the Ages” in Investment Professional and “Hotshot’s Groundbreaking Diversification” in Investment Manager Journal.
What’s the difference?
The first version is heavy on “we.” The message seems to be “We are great. You should be impressed.”
The second version addresses readers’ concerns. It tells them what benefit they’ll get from reading the XXX Investment Company Report. They’ll learn that their worries about diversification may be misplaced because of the new approach developed by XXX Investment Company.
The bottom line for asset managers? Whatever you write, take the time to put yourself in your clients’ shoes. Appeal to their self-interest first. Put horn tooting last.
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NOTE: I updated this article in Jan. 2017.
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